Council Home Swapping
June 25th, 2009
If you are a council house tenant or housing association tenant wanting to move home, you may be able to Home Swap your home with another council or housing association tenant - this is called mutual exchange. A mutual exchange gives council tenants the opportunity to live in the property and area that meets their needs. The process involves two or more tenants exchanging their homes, i.e. swapping tenancies thereby, becoming responsible for each other’s rent and tenancy obligations.
Many councils and housing asscoiations have opted out of providing information to their tenants wishing to do a mutual exchange. Tenants are now expected to find their own mutual exchange and make the necessary arrangements which are then agreed by the landlord or denied.
All tenants wishing to carry out a Mutual Exchanges must apply to their landlord’s for permission to exchange. The Landlord has a maximum of 42 days from receipt of the application by which to provide the tenant with a written decision. If the written decision has not been provided within the 42-day period the Landlord cannot prevent the mutual exchange from going ahead. There is no magic formula for getting the mutual exchange that you require! It can take many hours of website searching, many subscription payments to various websites, and many cases a lot of disappointment and irritation. But when your mutual exchange has been agreed, approved, and complete the satisfaction, happiness, and contentment achieved can be second to none.
Once you have found your mutual exchange you need to inform your landlord, who then has 42 days within which to disallow or agree the mutual exchange. It may take a much shorter period of time to get the “thumbs up” from your landlord depending on how quickly the housing officer comes to inspect your property. Once the agreement to the mutual exchange has been received the tenant needs to give 28 days notice to his/her landlord of intention to end their tenancy, after this time the exchange date should be set.
When tenants are mutually exchanging the landlords in question try as far as is possible to make sure that non of the tenants are taken advantage of by (any) other. This consists of the landlord inspecting their property to make sure that it is in a good state of repair before agreeing to allow the mutual exchange. Other factors such as: rent arrears; social conduct; under/over occupancy and tenant history are also taken into account by the landlord when agreeing the mutual exchange.
A mutual exchange can be stressful with so many things to organise and pack and unlike a transfer through your social housing landlord you do not get a few days to a week to move as it is not an unoccupied property that you are moving to. Your actual move should take place in a day so that at the same time that you are moving into your new home your counterpart(s) are also moving into their new home. With this in mind a mutual exchange is probably the hardest home move to make and tips and advice should be saught to make it as straightforward as possible. After all, there is always going to be something you overlooked!
Being a council or housing association tenant and having the opportunuity to choose the Home Swap area that you wish to live in may sound impossible but it is a fact. As a secured social housing tenant you can arrange your own mutual exchange, choosing the property type, property area, and property size that is appropriate to your current housing requirements. This is restricted by the underoccupancy and overcrowding rules in forced by the landlords involved.